Lesser Key of Solomon

The Lesser Key of Solomon, also known as the Clavicula Salomonis Regis[note 1] or Lemegeton, is an anonymousgrimoire (or spell book) on demonology. It was compiled in the mid-17th century, mostly from materials a couple of centuries older.[1][2] It is divided into five books—the Ars Goetia, Ars Theurgia-Goetia, Ars Paulina, Ars Almadel, and Ars Notoria.[1][3]

Weyer's Officium Spirituum, which is likely related to a 1583 manuscript titled "The Office of Spirits",[7] appears to have ultimately been an elaboration on a 15th-century manuscript titled Le Livre des Esperitz (of which 30 of its 47 spirits are nearly identical to spirits in the Ars Goetia).[2][5]

This portion of the work was later translated by S. L. MacGregor Mathers and published by Aleister Crowley under the title The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King. Crowley added some additional invocations previously unrelated to the original work, as well as essays describing the rituals as psychological exploration instead of demon summoning.[9]

The demons' names (given below) are taken from the Ars Goetia, which differs in terms of number and ranking from the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum of Weyer. As a result of multiple translations, there are multiple spellings for some of the names, which are given in the articles concerning them.

The Ars Theurgia Goetia mostly derives from Trithemius's Steganographia, though the seals and order for the spirits are different due to corrupted transmission via manuscript.[5][10] Rituals not found in Steganographia were added, in some ways conflicting with similar rituals found in the Ars Goetia and Ars Paulina. Most of the spirits summoned are tied to points on a compass, four Emperors tied to the cardinal points, sixteen Dukes tied to cardinal points, inter-cardinal points, additional directions between those. There are an additional eleven Wandering Princes, totaling thirty one spirit leaders who each rule several to a few dozen spirits.[11]

Derived from book two of Trithemius's Steganographia and from portions of the Heptameron, but purportedly delivered by Paul the Apostle instead of (as claimed by Trithemius) Raziel. Elements from The Magical Calendar, astrological seals by Robert Turner's 1656 translation of Paracelsus's Archidoxes of Magic, and repeated mentions of guns and the year 1641 indicate that this portion was written in the later half of the seventeenth century.[12][13] Traditions of Paul communicating with heavenly powers are almost as old as Christianity itself, as seen in some interpretations of 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 and the apocryphal Apocalypse of Paul. The Ars Paulina is in turn divided into two books, the first detailing twenty-four angels aligned with the twenty-four hours of the day, the second (derived more from the Heptameron) detailing the 360 spirits of the degrees of the zodiac.[13]

Mentioned by Trithemius and Weyer, the latter of whom claimed an Arabic origin for the work. A 15th-century copy is attested to by Robert Turner, and Hebrew copies were discovered in the 20th century. The Ars Almadel instructs the magician on how to create a wax tablet with specific designs intended to contact angels via scrying.[14][15]

The oldest known portion of the Lemegeton, the Ars Notoria (or Notory Art) was first mentioned by Michael Scot in 1236 (and thus was written earlier). The Ars Notoria contains a series of prayers (related to those in The Sworn Book of Honorius) intended to grant eidetic memory and instantaneous learning to the magician. Some copies and editions of the Lemegeton omit this work entirely;[16][17]A. E. Waite ignores it completely when describing the Lemegeton.[4] It is also known as the Ars Nova.